She crosses the arena floor. Her boots leave prints in the dirt, and the crowd is watching now, cameras swinging, the announcer going quiet because he can feel the shift.
She stops in front of me. "What are you doing?"
"Something I should have done weeks ago."
"In the middle of the arena? In front of all these people?"
"I wanted witnesses."
"For what?"
I pull the velvet box from the gear bag the bullfighter handed me and drop to one knee in the arena dirt, the same dirt that exists in every rodeo venue on this circuit, the same sand that held Grant at Las Cruces and Tyler at Fort Worth and every rider who ever gave this sport everything they had.
The arena holds its breath.
"Kenna Corbin." I say her full name because the next question I ask might change it. "You walked onto my circuit with a fake name and a grudge and the sharpest tongue I've ever had the misfortune to fall in love with. You lied to me about who you were, tore my investigation open from the inside, and then turned around and saved it. You're smarter than me, braver than me, and more stubborn than any bull I've ever ridden, and I've ridden some truly terrible bulls."
She's staring at me with her hands at her sides and her eyes bright and her composure cracking at the seams.
"I'm a beat-up bull rider who's too stubborn to quit and too in love with you to care about anything else. Marry me."
Her mouth works but nothing comes out for a beat.
"You're proposing in an arena."
"I'm proposing inourarena."
"Sentiment, Holloway? From you?"
"From me. For you. Get used to it."
Her eyes are wet. She's smiling, and the smile is the unguarded one I love seeing on her.
"You didn't even finish the question."
"I said marry me. That's the question."
"Technically, that's a command."
"Kenna."
"Yes."
"Yes?"
"Yes, you impossible, reckless, infuriating man. Yes."
I open the box. My hands are steady because they've been trained by bulls and rope and years of trusting the mechanics when the adrenaline says otherwise. The ring slides onto her finger like it was built for the space, and her breath catches when she looks down at it.
Then I'm on my feet and she's against me before the moment finishes landing. I get one hand in her hair and the other on the small of her back, pulling her flush against me, and the crowd erupts but I'm not listening to the crowd. I'm kissing her in the dirt, in front of cameras and riders and thousands of strangers who came to watch bull riding and got a proposal as an added attraction. She tastes like adrenaline and the cheap beer she snuck behind the chutes and the future I stopped being afraid to want.
She pulls back, laughing, her hands on my face, tears tracking through the dust on her cheeks.
"You proposed in the dirt."
"Best surface in the world."
"You're insane."
